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Canadians remember Montreal Massacre'

MONTREAL—Bouquets of red, pink, and white roses were laid outside Ecole polytechnique yesterday at the foot of a plaque bearing the names of the 14 women who were killed there 28 years ago.

The two dozen or so people who attended the brief outdoor ceremony stood in silence, some wiping away tears, as they remembered the “Montreal Massacre,” when a gunman shot the 14 women to death and injured 14 other people on Dec. 6, 1989.

Industrial engineering student Blanche Mageau-Beland said she believes the anniversary is especially meaningful to the school's female engineering students.

“It's with the presence of those women, and all the women who were in engineering before us, that we're able to study,” she said after the ceremony.

“They're the women who cleared the path.”

Michele Thibodeau-Deguire, the school's first female civil engineering graduate, remembers when the site was transformed into a sea of white roses in the days following the worst mass shooting in the country's history.

“It was something that came out; people just wanted to show how they felt,” said Thibodeau-Deguire, now the head of the school's board of directors.

“And every year, white roses were brought here at the door of polytechnique.”

In recent years, Thibodeau-Deguire said the school has worked to transform the anniversary—and the symbol of the white rose—into something positive.

That includes awarding an annual scholarship to a female engineering student in memory of the victims, and by selling white roses to help fund a science camp for girls from underprivileged neighbourhoods.

“From something horrible, something beautiful came out,” she noted.

A ceremony for the 14 victims was held late yesterday afternoon at the lookout atop Mount Royal Park.